


Angel in the Snow

by heartofthesunrise



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, kissing and angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22030198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofthesunrise/pseuds/heartofthesunrise
Summary: For a big city, New York is a small town.
Relationships: Niall Horan/Zayn Malik
Comments: 14
Kudos: 57





	Angel in the Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarcangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcangel/gifts).



> happy holidays angela!!! and big ups to jamila for running this little exchange. hope u enjoy this formulaic manifestation of my heart <3

_ December, 2019 _

Niall slips out of the afterparty unnoticed.  _ An Irish goodbye,  _ he thinks, and laughs. It’s not that he’s having a bad time, really, but he’s scarcely had a moment to himself all this week, and the scotch warming in his hand wasn’t helping. He gets maudlin, this time of year, and all that small talk, all the goodbye-ing and hand-shaking makes him antsy. He’s been thinking too much about the other SNL afterparties he’s been to, when he’d been at the metaphorical kids’ table with all his friends and they’d been able to leave together whenever they’d wanted to, strength in numbers, and all. 

It could’ve been somebody else, that version of himself seems so far away sometimes. Like he’s just heard the story enough that he’s started believing it really happened. 

He starts heading south down sixth avenue. He’s heading towards his hotel, but vaguely - he’ll end up having to call a car, if he wants to get all the way there without being spotted. But for now the press and release of pedestrian traffic in midtown is on his side: people staring up at buildings they’ve seen in architectural magazines, or the establishing shots of films, or wherever. Nobody’s looking at anybody who’s walking with purpose towards the maw of the 59th street M station; Niall is just somebody with somewhere to be, maybe a midtown bartender clocking off early, or a member of the pit band of a Broadway show. Niall slides past the subway entrance and on down the block with his head tucked down and the brim of his hat pulled low. 

Niall would never live here: it smells terrible, and the supermarkets are awful, and so is the traffic. It’s loud, no matter how well sound-proofed your apartment. There’s no space for a garden. If you want to throw a party you’ve got to rent out a restaurant, because once anybody knows where you live, photographers will camp outside just to catch you in your pajamas getting the mail from your doorman. It’s an absolutely untenable place to live. 

But he has to admit, there’s something irresistible about New York City at Christmastime. All the trees that perforate the sidewalk at intervals are strung with fairy lights, as are the lampposts, and the scent of cinnamon and vanilla from the roasted nut carts is somehow more tempting, less cloying, than it is during the rest of the year. As the crowds thin out around him Niall can look up and around, see where he’s ended up, and it’s like the photo negative of a fairytale picture: the Bryant Park Christmas market, shuttered for the night. Dim lights are on behind some stall windows, where baskets of holiday ornaments sparkle like petits-fours and knitted scarves and goats-milk soaps ferried down from the Catskills, or wherever they’re made, sit heaped and waiting for the next day’s crowds to come along and want them. Niall can see the halo of his own ghostly reflection in the reinforced plexiglass around one shop. 

He could be anybody, in his overcoat and hat, with his hands stuffed in his pockets because he’s lost his gloves somewhere this week and hasn’t thought to send out for a new pair. 

There’s somebody standing in his periphery, and Niall adjusts the brim of his cap and moves along, trying not to look. The best way to be really noticed is to try to see if you’re being noticed - he’s learned this the hard way. 

When he turns to go there’s something, though - it’s - no, it can’t be, it’s just that he was thinking about him - about all of them - earlier, so his mind has just conjured a familiar face out of a vague similarity, and anyway he’s exhausted so he’s not thinking clearly, and it’s - 

“You’re not crazy,” Zayn says, and stubs out his cigarette. 

“Zayn,” Niall says, stuck on it like a car in a snowbank, trying to back out and sliding further in whenever he lets up. “You’re…” 

“Everything’s closed,” Zayn says. “If you were shopping, like. Haveta wait for tomorrow.” 

“Oh,” Niall says. “Thanks. I mean, I wasn’t - I’m just going - Christ, what are you doing here?”

He looks the same, or, he looks the way Niall knows he looks now: skinny and elegant and effortlessly cool in a wool coat and a raglan sweater with a stylistically intentional run laddering up the side. They haven’t seen each other in years. The spoke… last Christmas, maybe? The year before? It runs together some, the way they’ve all spread apart like the points in a constellation. 

Zayn smiles to himself, and shakes another cigarette out of his pack. “My mum asked me to send her a pickle ornament,” he says, and tucks the cigarette behind his ear. 

“Sounds dirty,” Niall says before he can stop himself. 

Zayn digs a hand into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a parcel, which he offers to Niall. 

It’s a blown glass pickle, distressingly realistic in the dim light. 

“It looks dirty,” Niall says, handing it back. 

Zayn shrugs. “I guess it’s an American thing,” he says, and pockets the ornament. “Anyway it’s a nice night, so I’m… Enjoying it, I suppose. Before I head home.” 

Without quite meaning to, Niall falls into step beside Zayn, both of them meandering towards the empty ice rink where a lone Zamboni is making the rounds. 

“What brings you to New York?” Zayn asks. 

“SNL,” Niall says, trying not to sound like he’s bragging. “And Jingle Ball, last night.” 

“Ah,” Zayn says. He lights his cigarette and takes a long drag before stopping to watch the Zamboni. “You really like all that stuff, don’t you?” 

It’s ungenerous, but Niall is looking for a mean edge to Zayn’s words, and is relieved when he doesn’t find one. Like he’s genuinely curious, like he doesn’t understand the appeal, but wants to know why Niall does. 

“I do,” he says. “I love it, if I’m honest.”

“You like to work,” Zayn says, around the corner of a smile.

“Don’t you?” Niall asks. “I mean, you do it differently, but -” 

“I don’t, really,” Zayn says shortly. “I like to make things, but this -” He gestures with his cigarette, and it encompasses so much that’s gone unsaid between them. “It gets in the way.” 

“You don’t miss it at all?” Niall asks, and studies the slope of Zayn’s nose and the coal-black fan of his eyelashes as he takes a drag on his cigarette. 

In the ice rink, the Zamboni finishes it’s cycle and the driver parks it, shutting the lights off on his way out. 

“There are things I miss,” Zayn says. “Just not… I don’t know. The scales don’t balance, Niall.” 

“No, I know,” Niall says, even though he doesn’t. He misses it so much it embarrasses him, sometimes: the effortless success; knowing he was at the height of his career, and enjoying it accordingly. 

What Niall wouldn’t give for a little darkness - hard to come by, in this town. Zayn’s big eyes glancing towards him and then away - at the park, at the looming shape of the library beyond, at the gentle current of people on the sidewalk - have always disarmed him, and they do now, like nothing’s changed. 

“Should we walk?” Niall asks, because he can’t stand it. 

Zayn nods, and they descend from the side of the ice rink and wind back through the empty market. 

“It’s nice to see you,” Zayn says. He’s stopped just at the edge of the shadows, like stepping out onto the sidewalk will change something he’s not prepared for. 

“You alright?” Niall says. When Zayn doesn’t say anything he continues, “Zayn, it’s the middle of the night. Nobody’s going to see you.” 

He steps back into the park, like he’s going to… What? Drag Zayn out by the arm if he has to? Put him in a yellow cab and send him back to Greene street? 

Zayn puts a hand on Niall’s ungloved wrist, and everything comes rushing back to him: every little heartache, every sleepless night learning his solos and worrying about him and texting him and consciously not texting him, everything he’s convinced himself he’s let go, every impulse to smooth things over and not take sides, every second he’s spent thinking about Zayn and convinced he’s knocking on a closed door, all of it. 

And Zayn kisses him, and it all turns to snow: some of it blows away, and some of it piles up around them, making it dangerous, and some of it… Some of it is beautiful, he supposes. Zayn’s soft mouth when he pulls back to apologize; his surprise when Niall leans in to kiss him back. 

“Zayn,” Niall says, because they’re in the park, but they’re not  _ that  _ far into the park, and it’s late, but it’s not  _ that  _ late. He lets out a shaky exhale and leans his head on Zayn’s shoulder. “Is that a pickle ornament in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” 

Zayn laughs his real laugh, which Niall hasn’t heard in so long he can barely remember how he used to tell it apart from Zayn’s for-the-cameras laugh, only he just  _ knows.  _ He sneaks a look at his phone and sees he’s been missed from the party. He’s flying out early tomorrow. He’s got to go. 

“I hate to do this,” he says, already sending a pre-written text for his driver. “But I have to go. Here,” he says, handing Zayn his phone. “Put in whatever number you’ve got right now.” 

Time slips away around them. Zayn hands back his phone, and Niall wants to kiss him again to prove to himself that it happened. He’s just starting to push Zayn further back into the shadows when his phone goes off - his car has its hazards on at the curb, a row of taxis honking impatiently behind it. 

“Don’t ghost me,” he says, and gets his arms around Zayn one last time before leaving him looking slightly rumpled but no less effortlessly cool, standing alone at the edge of Bryant Park. 

Niall watches him from the car window until they pull away and he can’t see him anymore, then pulls out his phone to text him. Maybe it’s too eager. Maybe he’ll regret all of this tomorrow, when common sense and self-preservation have come back to him. Maybe he really did imagine all of it. 

But there is a new number, saved under “Z” because they’d been in a hurry, and Niall sends off a quick “text me to let me know you got home safe :)” before they’re even out of midtown. It’s obvious bait, but he can’t help himself. He doesn’t want to leave the party without saying goodbye. He’d rather have the small-talk than nothing at all. 


End file.
